More than 3 000 internet banking customers a day are downloading Standard Bank’s free McAfee anti-virus and firewall software. In addition, the bank has detected and eliminated over 85 000 viruses on customers’ personal computers, it said on Tuesday.
Standard Bank announced on Friday that it would supply its internet banking customers with free McAfee anti-virus and firewall software to provide a safer online environment. The bank has also introduced a calculator-type PIN (Personal Identification Number) Pad on its internet banking site to counteract keypad logging software allegedly used recently to defraud another bank’s clients.
This comes in the wake of several bank sites being hacked into in recent weeks. Hackers made off with more than R500 000 rand after hacking into Absa client accounts. African Bank also reported that its website had been hacked into, but that no damage had been done.
Said Herman Singh, director for direct channels at Standard Bank: “The overwhelming response from our customers to the free software has been very encouraging. The fact that customers are taking internet banking security so seriously reinforces our message that internet security has to be a partnership between the bank and its customers.”
He said there has also been a surge of new customers signing up for Standard Bank’s internet banking.
“Interestingly, we have discovered that our customers had over 85 000 viruses on their personal computers: this equates to about 20 viruses a customer. This is not surprising considering that there are over 60 000 known viruses in the world, 87% of which are transmitted by the internet,” said Singh
The McAfee anti-virus software has cleaned and deleted all the customers’ viruses. “Another positive aspect is that that by ‘killing’ these viruses we are helping free up the internet, making its operations a lot quicker.
“I would encourage all our Internet banking customers to download the software. It is easy to download and is self-configuring, making it compatible with all home PCs,” said Singh.
The anti-virus software will be free to customers for a year, after which customers will be responsible for the maintenance fee on the software, which will be negotiated in bulk by Standard bank for the benefit of its customers.
Standard Bank’s PIN Pad device pops up when customers log onto the internet banking site. Instead of using the keyboard to type in the customer- selected PIN, customers will use their mouse to click on the numbers of the PIN Pad, making keystroke detection impossible through keystroke logging software.
“This additional security measure is to ensure criminals cannot get access to our customer’s PIN details using so-called ‘spyware’ software. We urge customers to use the PIN Pad and their mouse when entering their PIN,” said Singh. – I-Net Bridge